Whose thoughts are suited to her life's decline:
Virtue's the paint that can with wrinkles shine.
That, and that only, can old age sustain;
Which yet all wish, nor know they wish for pain.
Not num'rous are our joys, when life is new;
And yearly some are falling of the few;
But when we conquer life's meridian stage,
And downward tend into the vale of age,
They drop apace; by nature some decay,
And some the blasts of fortune sweep away;